The Cabinet began its meeting with a prayer and a reading from the Book of Psalms.

The Cabinet invited a three-person team consisting of a Barbudan entrepreneur and two investors who are planning to develop a tourism project on several acres of land in Barbuda. The luxury hospitality resort will consist of 60 rooms and six villas, and will not use concrete but will nevertheless be built to withstand Category 5 hurricanes. The team presented a power-point collection of graphs, architectural renderings, and landscapes showing their eco-friendly hospitality resort that is expected to be built near Two-Foot Bay. It will be aimed at attracting high-income customers. They will invest more than US$200 million, will start construction before the end of 2025, and will be open for receiving guests by 2029 or in four years. The Cabinet received the presentation with thanks, and expressed delight at having yet another high-end investment project on Barbuda.

The Cabinet held a discussion about the Cancer Center and its readiness to receive patients for radiation and chemo-therapy. The Cabinet agreed that the machines which remain in the building are no longer useful but can be removed only under the supervision of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—a United Nations body that possesses the expertise to decommission the (radioactive) machines that are within the building. The Cabinet authorized the Attorney General to move to acquire the machines if the owners do not claim them within a certain timeframe, and to present the Court with a valuation that can stand up to scrutiny. In the meantime, repair work is continuing on the roof and the interior of the building. An engineering flaw which failed to take into account cascading columns of water when runoff pours down from the excavated hillside, is also being addressed. An exact date for the refitting of the Center with new machines, staff and trained personnel could not be fixed at this time, although the Cabinet was informed that within 60 to 90 days, the repair work will be completed.

The Cabinet invited four officials from the Public Works Department—the Permanent Secretary, the Minister of State within the Ministry, the Director and Deputy Director—to address the continuing work on repairing highways and community roads throughout the country. It was agreed that teams of workers, undertaking repairs at night, will continue. Several concrete roads that were started in Pares Village, Weirs, and Lightfoot will be completed, and All Saints Road will be repaved completely. A sum of US$5 million is already assigned by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to enable road repairs; consequently, that CDB amount will be utilized to purchase new equipment that will expand the capabilities of the Ministry of Works to add to the road repairs list. The Cabinet identified the road to Hermitage Bay, the Bathlodge Road, the Buckley’s Line, Bellevue, Herbert’s Highway, and several others in St. John’s and rural Antigua for repairs. More than $50 million will be assigned to Barbuda for road building.

The Cabinet also agreed that a small increase in vehicle registration fees, on heavy-duty trucks and on earth-moving equipment that utilize the roadways shortening their lifespan, will soon be enacted following the next Parliamentary sitting this month. The amounts to be raised by this shift will be utilized to leverage a loan from several banks that will be utilized to fix many roads throughout the country. It will become a dedicated sum, not unlike the Board of Education Levy that is currently used to provide resources to fund education; or, the statutory obligations paid to MBS by all employed persons to support healthcare in the country. The complaints of potholed and poor road surfaces will be eliminated in Antigua and Barbuda, the Cabinet decided.

The Cabinet has agreed that Antigua and Barbuda will place on the agenda of the next CARICOM Heads, an enabling resolution that would encourage the CARICOM to establish a special fund to purchase vaccines. The announced plan of the current US Administration to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) will mean that many small states will be very vulnerable in the event there is another global pandemic. The availability of vaccines and other drugs are likely to become unavailable, except for purchase. The USA is a large contributor to the WHO and its withdrawal will impact small states most.

The Cabinet has placed food security and food sovereignty high on the nation’s agenda, given the trade wars that could take place and could affect the cost and supply of food. Antigua and Barbuda imports more than 90% of the food consumed, and spends more than $200 million dollars annually on food imports from North America. The Cabinet agreed to begin its drive towards increasing food production by making more land available to farmers with capital and expertise. Diamonds Estate is more than 200 acres large, with 80 acres fenced, and with a very small percentage currently under production. Every effort will be made to strengthen and expand this particular farmland, still owned by the state.

The plans for the Local Investment Conference are being concretized by the further involvement of the Cabinet. Although the leadership will come from the Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority (ABIA), the input of the entire Cabinet is intended to strengthen its success. The Cabinet is persuaded that many depositors with savings that earn 2% interest, will find the proposals to be put forward by the ABIA very exciting with far greater returns on investment than the amounts paid on savings. More details are to follow in the weeks to come.

The Cabinet invited four officials from Global Ports Holding (GPH)—the firm that has management responsibility for Heritage Quay and the expanded St. John’s Port facilities—to report on its plans to make the extraction of visitors from the cruise ships to the shops, to join walking tours, and to paid-for ground transport, more orderly. The team presented a video clip which showed taxi drivers actually engaged in a fist fight in the presence of cruise passengers. It appears that unauthorized drivers seek to attract visitors to their vehicles, even wearing shirts that match the colour utilized by the legitimate drivers. The wall of drivers who virtually impose a barrier to visitors who choose to disembark the vessels, shouting and carrying signs, give the impression of great disorder. The team has consulted with the Police, the shop owners, the vendors and the drivers about making the welcome scene far friendlier than it now is. Their plans will be concretized and rolled out within weeks.

The Cabinet received a fruit basket and a card from a family who sought and received Cabinet’s support for medical assistance to save the life of their mother. Although their own efforts to provide all that they could, fell short of the costs to meet the expenses of the removal of a brain tumor from their ailing relative, the appeal to the Cabinet was crucial. Thanks were being expressed to the Cabinet, despite the inability of the doctors to save the patient’s life.